Cycling on rise... but funds fall

FUNDING for cycling infrastructure fell from €19million to €7million last year, despite the number of people cycling to work rising by 43% since 2011.

Critics accused the Government of failing to join the dots between transport and planning, as a new report shows the majority of transport investment is going to roads, with just 0.3% allocated to walking and cycling.

The Transport Trends 2018 document published yesterday noted the numbers of people cycling to work grew to 56,837. The number commuting to work also rose to 1.88million in 2016, with 65.6% of them travelling by car.

Road deaths are at the lowest rate since records began with 157 in 2017, a 16% reduction on 2016. However, 14 cyclists died on the roads in 2017, up from an average of nine per year in the previous decade.

On public transport, almost 130million journeys were paid for by Leap Card, while the number of passengers handled at Irish airports reached a record 34.5million last year – with Dublin Airport handling 29.5million of them.

The Minister for Transport, Shane Ross, said the report demonstrates strong and continued economic growth. ‘An additional 16million public transport journeys last year, record numbers travelling through Irish airports, and a 5% increase in goods handled by our ports are all signs of a thriving economy,’ he said. ‘We will continue investing in transport infrastructure to ensure growth continues and that workers can get to their jobs, tourists can get to every corner of the country, and goods can be shipped all over the world.’

However, the Green Party’s Transport spokesman, Ciarán Cuffe, said: ‘The United Nations calls for “at least 20%” of transport budgets to go towards cycling and walking. It seems Minister Ross didn’t get the memo or, if so, he and his officials chose to ignore it in a year of weather extremes when climate change was in the headlines or transport emissions continue to soar.’